“We didn’t know how different it was going to be visually, and the fact that they have these elephants and cobras and things,” Allison said. “It was quite astonishing to see how different it is from anything that we’ve covered before on coffee.” Starbucks is important to the Seattle economy, because the company employs so many people locally, and because its financial health can be used as a barometer in tough economic times: When money gets tight, people cut out small luxuries like coffee, Allison said.
There are plans to publish a travel diary of the trip on the Times website after an unrelated story runs about a Seattle NGO’s anti-poverty effort in India, the third piece that Allison reported while she was away. It was this story that fulfilled the requirements for the Seattle International Foundation grant needed to fund Allison’s trip, according to Simon.
Last year, the Times stretched that grant money to pay for the India trip and pieces by staff and freelancers in Afghanistan, Uganda, Nicaragua, and Sudan, as well as a weekly column called the Seattle Globalist by local journalist Sarah Stuteville.
“This is the first time we ever received a grant for a broad area of coverage,” Simon said, “and this is the first time the foundation has funded journalism. They give us very broad parameters for the types of stories we want to run.”
“I think we’ll see more of papers using this kind of funding to do stories that aren’t immediately in the news,” he added. “They are something we haven’t been able to do nearly as much of in the last 10 years.”
A month-long trip for two people in India, and $15,000 is the budget? How in the world does that math work? Did they sleep at bus stations? Story very badly needs some indication that the writer at least asked about the costs.
#1 Posted by ben, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 10:40 AM
Kudos to Allison for getting the project together and to the Seattle Times for sending her. But it is a sad testimony to the state of newspaper journalism that it is a journalism review worthy story that a major metro went to India to cover the practices of its iconic local megacorporation. How much does the Seattle Times spend covering the Mariners, Seahawks, and Huskies? If the Sacramento Kings move to Seattle as expected, will the reporter be forced to put together a proposal to travel with the team? Unlikely.
#2 Posted by H. Barca, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 10:46 AM
Ben, As Sheffield's story says, the $15,000 was actually for far more than just our India trip. Traveling in most developing countries, including India, is quite inexpensive. It's getting there that's pricey. Sheffield also mentions that the paper has some travel funds, and we paired those with some of the grant money, which had to stretch far beyond this story. -- Melissa
#3 Posted by Melissa Allison, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 12:17 PM
@Ben: Huh? I support my entire family for a month in the much more expensive USA for less than half that amount -- what seems so astonishing to you?
#4 Posted by Brian O'Connor, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 12:19 PM
Ben: The story spells out clearly that there was a travel budget in addition to the portion of the $15,000 grant still available. Perhaps you want to read a bit more carefully before launching into your criticisms.
#5 Posted by Bill Hogan, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 01:27 PM
This is Jim Simon, a Seattle Times editor. I just wanted to amplify some of what Melissa said and provide a few more details on how our Seattle International Foundation grant works.
First, we did not spend anywhere near $15K on the Indian trip. That, as the story mentions, is the total foundation grant we received to cover issues of global poverty and development. For example, the grant has funded reporting on efforts to improve conditions at orphanages in Aghanistan, a photo essay/magazine story on prenatal programs in Central American, a freelance piece on fighting cancer in Uganda and some upcoming work in India.
The grant funds allowed us to send a reporter and photographer to India. Once there, we tried to leverage the funds as broadly as possible by using Seattle Times money to report the coffee stories.
#6 Posted by Jim SImon, CJR on Wed 30 Jan 2013 at 07:55 PM